Promises
by HuaFeiHua
Summary: Ten years ago, they made a promise to each other: if they had nobody else, then they would marry each other. Ten years later and Mikasa still feels like a child, but she asks Eren about their promise anyway.


**Word Count:** 2,405

* * *

" _Hey Mikasa?"_

" _Yes, Eren?"_

" _If we're not married in ten years, do you wanna get married?"_

 _A pause._

" _Well, what do you think?"_

" _I… well, I… I_ guess _I wouldn't mind. But Eren, what if one of us dies before then?"_

" _Relax, Mikasa; by that time, I'm sure we'd have killed all the titans by then. I'm sure of it."_

" _Okay then. I'll marry you in ten years."_

" _Pinky promise?"_

" _Pinky promise."_

" _There's just one thing left to do then."_

" _What?"_

" _A kiss, of course. It's what seals an engagement."_

" _I'm not too sure about this, Eren…"_

" _Just a quick one, then."_

" _O-okay…"_

…

* * *

A decade later, and Mikasa still hadn't forgotten the promise she and Eren had made to each other when they were nine.

A decade later, and there were still titans beyond the walls, though humanity had a much better grasp on them than they used to.

A decade later, and they were both still alive and kicking.

Though sometimes, it felt as though being alive were something not to be celebrated, but something that they simply had to bear with. To trudge forward, dragging themselves from day to day. Living, at times, felt like a chore.

Years of war had taken a toll on everyone she knew, both physically and mentally. No longer were her friends naive and cheerful, no, the war against the titans had changed them. Their eyes were hollow and somber; they were the eyes of murderers.

At least, that's how it was with those who were still alive, which honestly, weren't many. Erwin hadn't been kidding when he said that an estimated ninety percent of those who joined would be dead in four years. Of the original twenty-one cadets who had joined from the one-hundred-fourth trainee's squad, only six were still active membersㅡ Eren, Mikasa, and Jean.

The rest were either traitors, missing in action, or long dead.

The three still in the Corps could see why Levi loved to clean now: their hands were stained with the blood of the innocents. Everything they touched became stained in red and they couldn't bear it.

Mikasa stared at the ratty calendar in the room she had once shared with Sasha. They couldn't get their hands on a new one every year, so this one was oldㅡ from way back in eight-fifty-twoㅡ but that didn't matter. All the easier to keep track of anniversaries with.

June twenty-third was the date today, if she remembered correctly. Exactly ten years ago, long before this whole mess had started, she and Eren had agreed that, if they weren't married by this time, they would marry each other.

Nineteen had seemed a lot older back then. Sometimes, Mikasa still felt like a child. A child caught in the bloody horrors of a fight. The beast titan had said that someday they'd be calling children and elders out to the fight? She laughed at that statement now; those inside the walls always _had_ been fighting with children.

June twenty-third. Ten years. Would he still remember? And if he did, would he just scoff at the idea, saying now isn't the time?

There was only one way to find out.

"Eren."

"Yeah, Mikasa?"

"Don't be talking with your mouth full," Mikasa chided, then took a deep breath. "Remember when we were kids and we made that promise to get married?"

Eren put his fork down and swallowed his food. "You mean back when we were nine?"

Mikasa nodded.

"Er, well, yeah. I s'pose I remember making that suggestion. Why'd you bring it up?"

"It's been ten years," she said and looked him in the eye. "What if… what if we did get married?" she tentatively asked when he didn't reply.

He put his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together so that he could rest his chin on them. "You're kidding, right?"

"What is there to kid about?" she said seriously.

Eren raised an eyebrow at her. "You really want to get married? In _this_ world?"

"Yes."

Eren bit his lip. "You're aware of what marriage symbolizes and means, right?"

"Yes. I've been thinking about this for _ten years_ , Eren."

"But do we meet the qualifications to get married?"

"We've been above the legal age* for three years, so yes."

"I mean mentally."

Mikasa flared her nostrils slightly. "Are you asking if I love you?"

Eren's eyes widened and he stopped resting his chin on his hands. "Well, er, essentially, yeah. I s'pose you could put it that way."

"Do you even have to _ask_? I've followed you even into _hell_ , for goodness' sake, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I had to," Mikasa calmly said.

Eren lowered his gaze and chewed his lip some more. "No, I suppose not," he muttered to himself.

"Then _why_ are you so hesitant about this?" she insisted. "We both know that either one of us could die any day we go out on an expedition, or of an accident here inside the walls. Life is short, and the world is cruel. I loㅡ"

"I don't want the two of us resenting each other for the rest of our lives because of a shortsighted promise our naïve nine-year-old selves made to each other," Eren hissed. "I don't want us to get married if it's just because we feel obligated to do it."

It was Mikasa's turn to lower her gaze now. She picked at her meager rations for a few moments then mumbled something incoherent before getting up to wash her plate.

* * *

Mikasa stared out the window at a sullen, grey sky. She was sitting on the windowsill, but she should have been trainingㅡ not that she really _had_ to at the moment anyway. But it would have helped keep her mind off of things, and when sitting and staring at the clouds, one's thoughts can't help but wander. Not to mention that, after that particular lunchtime, she had a lot of food for thought (no pun intended).

Once upon a time, she had been a new recruit, bright-eyed and hopeful. But now, after fighting in this war for a little over four years, much of that had been stripped from her, leaving her a much more melancholy husk of the self she had once been.

She no longer believed that they would eradicate the titans, or solve the mystery behind them, in her lifetime. Oh, she would still help, for the sake of the generation coming after her, with the thought that maybe they would get the chance at a life she never got. But her spirit was no longer in it.

She heard a knock at her door and flinched. "Yes?" she tentatively asked the person at the door.

"May I come in?" Eren's muffled voice politely requested from the other side.

"Oh. Sure, the door's unlocked," she answered, shifting on her seat so that she was facing the door.

Eren somewhat nervously entered her bedroom and sat down on Sasha's old bunk. "I was thinking about that old promise after lunch. And let's say… let's say we _did_ get married," he said very slowly and deliberately. "How would this affect our lives?"

Mikasa mulled it over for a moment. "Nothing huge would have to change if you don't want it to. As long as we don't have kids, we can stay in the military. We'd just be us. Devoting our lives to fighting for humanity and to each other."

"What's the point of getting married if nothing will change?"

"Do you _want_ things to change?"

Eren only scowled.

"Why are you so against this idea in the first place? _You_ were the one who proposed it all those years ago."

He opened his mouth to say something, but soon closed it and scowled more. He stood up and paced in restless circles, his temper starting to get the best of him despite the lack of anything to be mad about. Mikasa patiently watched him as he practically threw a fit at himself.

"Why are _you_ so insistent on actually doing it? We were _nine_ when we made that promise! _Nine_. We didn't know anything! We didn't think we'd be here! Nineteen seemed a lot older when we were nine, but here we are, at age nineteen! I don't feel like an adult yet, even though I _am_ one!" he finally answered, raising his voice in frustration, causing Mikasa to raise hers at him in turn, reverting to her first language.

『為什麼？因為我愛你。』she answered. She could feel tears beginning to sting at her eyes, but she didn't care.

Eren's temper wavered. When they were younger and Mikasa still had a solid grip on the language, she had taught him what she knew. He was never very good at it, but they still used it to communicate in code on extremely rare occasions.

『你也愛我嗎？』Mikasa continued, feeling tears sting at the corner of her eyes. Her voice was much softer now.

The brunet's expression was hard to read, flickering between frustration and the inability to properly express himself.

She knew not to push him for an answer and having calmed herself down, continued. "So why?"

"I don't want to burden you," was his whispered reply. "You've always been there to help me when I was about to die even though you never had any obligation to. If I married you, it would become more of an obligation to keep me safe, and if I die, I don't want to leave you with the guilt that you let me die."

"Eren, we both know you're going to die in four years anyway."

It was a subject neither one of them had touched since they learned of it: the time limit that stood in morbid silence over Eren's head was slowly ticking down to zero.

"You're not a burden, and you'd never become one to me. I protect you because I _love_ you, not because I feel I have to. Getting married is just… my ultimate way of showing that love. Of trying to give you something to think back on as a fond memory when you do pass on.

"And remember why you joined in the first place? To destroy the titans and by extension provide a better future for those who will come after us. Even if it's just one memory for one person after you, perhaps we can bring some hope and inspiration to whomever inherits your shifting abilities next."

For more than a few minutes, they both sat in dead silence. Not even the creaky old bed they sat on made a sound, for neither of them moved a muscle that would make it do so.

Mikasa stared intently at him, but Eren refused to look anywhere but the stone floor. She couldn't see his expression, but it seemed to her that he was close to crying.

The bed creaked as she got up to leave, planning on leaving him alone and dropping the subject altogether. Marriage to fulfill both her dreams and a silly childhood promise wasn't as impotant to her has his well-being, and she could tell it wasn't a subject he wanted to continue on with.

"Let's get married."

For a moment, she was convinced she misheard him, but there was no mistaking him when all the rest of the world was silent and asleep.

"What?" she said anyway, now half-wondering if she had hallucinated his statement. Neither of them had brought up the subject in weeks, when Mikasa had decided to drop it.

They were stargazing together atop one of the castle's towers. It was a wonderful view, with their headquarters being so far out into the wilderness so as to better keep Eren away from the civilians, though they rarely came out to see it like this.

"I said, 'let's get married'. You were talking about the same thing a couple weeks ago, weren't you? I wanted to tell you I wanted to since a couple weeks ago, but you never brought it up again. So, I decided I might as well tell you now."

Mikasa really had no response to this aside from stunned silence, but silence wasn't exactly the best at giving responses.

"Hey," he said after a time.

"Yeah?"

He changed his gaze from the stars down to Mikasa. "I love you, too." He looked up at the heavens again.

Mikasa only remembered to breathe again when it seemed the stars were fading from her sight. She took a deep breath and leaned over so that she could rest her head on Eren's shoulder. A smile crept over her faceㅡ not that she could help itㅡ and her heart was filled with contentment and a warm, fuzzy feeling. She was happy.

"Hey," she said, "shouldn't we kiss?"

"What for?"

She giggled for the first time in forever and cuddled closer to him. "It's what seals an engagement."

"Ah, of course." He leaned down and pressed his lips against her cheek for half a second. Grinning cheekily at her, he said, "there. A kiss."

"Nope," she replied, and pulled him close to her.

She gave him the kiss this time, a good and proper one right on the lips.

She laughed when they pulled away, for no real reason either. "Promise you'll remember me?"

"Now that I can't promise," he told her. Both their smiles wavered. "But I can promise you that I love you."

Her smile returned, and she offered him her hand with just her pinky extended. "Pinky promise?" she asked, feeling a little silly to be asking for something so childish.

His smile returned as well, and he linked his little finger with hers. "Pinky promise."

Their joy that night knew no bounds, and while they couldn't live happily ever after _forever_ , they lived in happiness until death did them part.

* * *

 _*so i've had this headcanon for a while that the legal age of marriage in their universe is ~16 because of how many people die young. and because they can join the military at 12. i mean i get they can't get married at age 12 because they're 12 but then they choose a division three years later, so a minimum of 15. anyway i just thought it would be more likely that they have a younger minimum age of marriage._

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ _also mikasa says "why? because i love you" and "do you love me?". i'm not sure how great of an idea that was considering how that bit may or may not have been the climax of the story and it'd be jarring to the readers who don't understand chinese but you know what *slides on shades* i left a translator's note that's good enough._

 _i also understand that mikasa being japanese is a common headcanon, but canonically speaking, they're known as the "east sea clan". that. literally means nothing to our world we can headcanon her as whatever we really want. my personal interpretation is mixed asian but that's just me. anyway, i'm just leaving this here because i don't feel comfortable using google translate for japanese but because i'm learning chinese i like to sometimes use this to just idk have fun with what i'm learning and then look back like "what what i doing i sucked at this language." just leaving this here in case anyone wanted to comment on that._

 _anyway, this was honestly the cheesiest thing i've written in a while and i love it. and them. god they're so cute._

 _anyway, i hope you enjoyed this really cheesy thing. yee. please review, if that's what you're into, and as always, have a greaaaat daaaaay~~~_


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